Reverse Diet: Permanent Abs

The Holy Grail of modern physical culture is a well-defined set of abs. But even if you’re one of the few who ever see their abs, it’s normally temporary. What if there was a way to keep them?

Dieting is the best way to get lean, but most diets fail and result in quick regain of fat afterward. (See here for how to set up a diet.)

It’s a frustrating Catch-22, but thankfully there is a way to make it work.

Temporary Diets Fail

Fat rebound happens when diets are seen as temporary breaks from normal unrestricted eating. When regular eating is returned to, the sudden influx of food leads to a lot of fat storage and the dreaded rebound.

Permanent Diets Fail

So why not just stay on the diet?

The problem is that becoming very lean normally requires substantial caloric restriction. This leads to unwanted adaptations including mood disturbances, hormonal disruption, fatigue, and extreme hunger (I write about this in The Dark Side of Staying Super Lean).

As such, a low Calorie diet can be sustained short term, but not lifelong.

Even if you could resist the body’s powerful mechanisms urging you to eat more, maintaining a highly restrictive diet would reduce quality of life and impair health.

Metabolism Is Fluid

The rate your body uses energy, commonly referred to as the metabolic rate or metabolism, can change.

One of the problems with low Calorie diets is that they decrease metabolism. Therefore metabolic rate must be recovered to avoid unwanted fat storage when food intake is increased after a diet.

This is possible through reverse dieting.

What is Reverse Dieting?

Reverse dieting is a method of building up food intake. It involves small increases over time.

The progressive raising of Calories effectively boosts metabolic rate, but isn’t enough to overwhelm energy requirements and lead to fat gain. The more restrictive the initial diet was, the more gradual the reverse diet must be.

How Much Food and How Fast?

Human physiology varies, so there is no all-encompassing rule. Some people will tolerate fast increases in caloric intake with no fat storage, while others will require smaller increases over longer periods of time.

The best way to proceed is by carefully monitoring body fat levels and adjusting diet accordingly.